The strategy, sources tell me has always been to do whatever it takes to make Croslin hit rock bottom, isolated, alone, needy and desperate enough to do something like deal drugs and get busted, providing the kind of leverage investigators figure they needed to psyche out the one person they maintain still holds the key to unlocking the Haleigh mystery—the ex babysitter who reported the five year old missing Feb. 9, 2009.

After flunking several polygraphs, she now maintains a Tennessee cousin, with her brother, Tommy, in tow, dropped by to steal Cummings’ prized WW II machine gun, that night. She says the cousin, Joe Overstreet, grew angry when he couldn’t find it, snatched Haleigh instead, menaced Misty with a knife and threatened to kill her family if she talked. Even her grandmother, Flora Hollars, tells me Overstreet threatened her after she dissed him as a possible suspect.